Doctor Octopus
}} Otto Octavius, also known by his alias Doctor Octopus, is the main antagonist of Marvel's Spider-Man, the PlayStation 4 video game. A highly intelligent scientist, Otto was once the co-founder of the mega-corporation Oscorp; however, he decided to leave when the other founder, his best friend Norman Osborn, became obsessed with unethical experiments. Otto would go on to start his own company, Octavius Industries, ending his friendship with Norman in the process. Otto is a friend and mentor of Peter Parker, who serves as his lab assistant at Octavius Industries—which relies on grants due to financial difficulties. There, he and Peter are on the verge of developing highly advanced prosthetic limbs. Otto's hatred of Norman, who is now the New York mayor as well as Oscorp's CEO, is reignited when the latter forcibly withdraws government funding for Octavius Industries in an attempt to force Otto to work for Oscorp. Motivated to get his revenge on Norman, Otto eventually transforms into the villainous Doctor Octopus. As Doctor Octopus, he then forms the Sinister Six as part of his violent master plan to destroy Norman and his empire. History Early history Born approximately in the year 1955 in Schenectady, New York, Otto Octavius met his future business partner Norman Osborn while in college. The two went to found the company Oscorp, and hoped to change the world together. According to Otto, the name "Oscorp" was a reference to the two "O's" in his and Norman's last names (O'sborn and '''O'ctavius). In 1986, a boy named Martin Li came to Oscorp to have a consultation for an unknown medical condition. Unknown to Otto, Norman had the boy injected with an early version of the experimental GR-27 ("Devil's Breath") serum. The treatment triggered a reaction that resulted in the death of Li's parents and Li receiving superhuman powers. Disgusted with Norman's recklessness, Otto filed a lawsuit, and ended up leaving Oscorp in exchange for a settlement, ending his friendship with Norman in the process. Otto would go on to found his own company, Octavius Industries. However, he was unable to reach the same level of success that he had at Oscorp, and was forced to rely on grants for employment. ''Marvel's Spider-Man'' Otto serves as Peter Parker's employer and mentor figure as a scientist. At the beginning of the game, he and Peter are working on highly advanced prostheses/prosthetics, in the hopes of providing replacement limbs that could interface with a human being's nervous system just like any natural limb does. While Peter is regularly late for work, Otto doesn't seem to resent him for it, instead being in silent awe of Peter's knack for what he terms "guerrilla science". It is revealed that Octavius Industries relies exclusively on grants for income, and when, later in the game, their current grant(s) is revoked by Mayor Osborn, Otto advises Peter to start looking for a new job. As the game progresses, Otto is revealed to have accepted support from the A.I.M. organization, which, according to Peter, has a shady reputation, in order to continue his work on prostheses. Even later in the game, Otto reveals that he is suffering from a degenerative neurological disorder, probably caused by exposure to toxic chemicals during his youth; without a breakthrough in his research on prostheses and on how to directly have them interface with the brain, he will eventually lose nearly all motor functions. Eventually, thanks to both his and Peter's efforts in their research, Otto manages to build highly advanced mechanical, retractable arms that work in conjunction with a neural interface directly implanted at the base of the skull, that interfaces with the basal ganglia. Peter figures that the interface presents risks of altering the user's mood and personality drastically if left unchecked, and manages to convince Otto to keep working on the prototype. However, as Peter departs, Otto stumbles upon a TV news report mentioning Osborn's responsibility in the Devil's Breath debacle. Otto finally snaps, and reactivates the faulty neural interface, along with the arms, and shifts from the gentle Otto Octavius to the vengeful Doctor Octopus. As Doctor Octopus, one of his first actions is to research the backgrounds of all the major supervillains locked inside the Raft so that he can offer them deals in order to work for him. After breaking them out, he forms the Sinister Six and puts his plan into motion: attack all of Osborn's holdings within the city, unleash the Devil's Breath on the populace, and make Osborn admit to his secrets. Spider-Man foils most of this, though is powerless to stop the release of the Devil's Breath. Doctor Octopus fights him atop Oscorp Tower after Osborn is saved. During this final confrontation, Otto reveals to Peter that he knew Peter was Spider-Man all along, and Peter soon realizes the Otto he knew does not exist any longer. Spider-Man ultimately defeats Doctor Octopus and acquires the antiserum, leaving Otto to be taken by the authorities. His artificial limbs are removed and he is sent to the Raft. Characteristics Appearance Otto is a dark-haired, balding, bespectacled individual. He appears to possess green eyes. While not sporting a beard, he does seem to sport a five o'clock shadow, seemingly due to all the time he spends working in the lab. While heavier than most people his size, Otto hardly appears fat – he is at best chubby, which would be expected of an older man not engaging in regular exercise. As Doctor Octopus, Otto wears a dark green body suit lined with a black polymer. From the center of his lower back are four long mechanical arms, comprised of a black polymer. At the end of each claw are two sets of four sharp claws, the larger of which are tipped yellow. Personality At the beginning of the game, Otto is described as an optimistic, forgiving person. While his work doesn't progress as well as he had hoped, he stays his course and seems to take everything in stride. Otto displays a gentle personality overall, not scolding Peter for his tardiness anymore than he feels he has to. Otto possesses an extremely high intellect, enough so that Peter admires him for it, yet does not display any of the arrogance his comic-book counterpart is famous for, instead admiring Peter's knack for impromptu science and describing the boy as a genius in his own right. However, as the game progresses, Otto starts acting frantically. He doesn't seem to have much patience when he feels close to reaching his goals, and as the mini-games reveal, Otto's designs have some overlooked flaws that Peter regularly has to address and correct. Additionally, Otto's frustrations with his fragile human body and oppression by Norman increasingly rise to the surface, culminating in his transformation into Doctor Octopus. As Doctor Octopus, Otto's personality shifts towards a vengeful, calculating individual with sociopathic tendencies. He displays little care towards the lives he endangers, justifying it as necessary. Ock acts on years of frustration and repressed anger towards Norman Osborn. Part of this shift is due to his implementation of the imperfect neural network, triggering limbic degradation that causes him to act out on his suppressed hatred. As his mental state continues to deteriorate, Otto becomes more aggressive, prone to mood swings, paranoid and increasingly self-righteous in his crusade against Norman. Abilities *'''Genius-Level Intellect: Otto possesses an extremely high intellect, showing a great array of knowledge in engineering, chemistry, physics, and programming. His intelligence even surpasses the prodigious genius of Peter Parker. Otto is also able to design advanced technological gadgets for Spider-Man, as well as easily deduce the latter's secret identity and masterfully deceive him into believing that he, Otto, still remained oblivious to that fact. However, he is often haphazard with his creations, overlooking critical flaws. **'Master Engineer and Inventor': Otto Octavius is an outstandingly supreme genius engineer, having an obvious penchant for robotics and biomechanics, surpassing even the extremely profilic Peter Parker, by craftily designing and integrating numerous improvements into the latter's Advanced suit by conducting meticulously methodical research that derived from his expertise in molecular engineering, which eventually led to Peter adopting this as his primary suit for crime fighting. Otto is also one of the leading authorities from the whole world, in prosthetics and neurotechnology, creating and engineering his own mechanical appendages (which by themselves rival even Spider-Man's superhumanly powers) and concocting advanced upgrades for the Sinister Six, that easily enabled them to mercilessly beat Spider-Man into submission. Furthermore, it is the concept originating from his artificial appendages which later heavily inspired the design behind Spider-Man's Anti-Ock suit. **'Master Tactician and Strategist': As the deviously conceited Doctor Octopus, Otto is a superbly proficient, genius tactician and strategist, far superseding the extremely experienced and masterful crime fighter, Spider-Man, shown by how he has evened seemingly insurmountable odds such as facilitating the breakout of the incarcerated Sinister-Six members from the inescapable super-max prison, The Raft, enabling them to cause mass destruction and unprecedented carnage during their riot. His phenomenal aptitudes in utilising cunning and planning to outwit multiple foes, such as Spider-Man and the incredibly perceptive and skilful Yuri Watanabe, were especially evident during the Raft Breakout, where Otto effectively implemented his master scheme and utilised his first pawn, Electro, to firstly incapacitate Yuri by having Electro severely electrocute her helicopter's system, leading to its eventual malfunction and subsequent destruction and the loss of her only mode of transport, and gaining leverage over her. Otto then successfully prevents the duo (Spider-Man and Yuri) to take a moment's breath and formulate their own counter strategy by having Electro then liberate the Raft's inmates in order to successfully divide the duo so that Otto can later on confront his enemy without any further hindrances as well as gradually exhaust Spider-Man by having him engage and recapture all of the escaped inmates single-handedly. The next phase of Otto's grand plan follows him having Spider-Man attacked by Rhino, when caught off guard, further depleting his endurance and consequently allow Electro to draw him out into Scorpion's trap by manipulating the hero to participate in a wild-goose chase so as to momentarily become distracted by the rampant inmates and carelessly get taken surprise by Scorpion, despite the precognitive warning of his spider-sense. Moreover, just when Scorpion seemingly has Spider-Man at his mercy, the air spontaneously explodes, violent blasting Spider-Man afar and land painfully on his back, further impairing his energy, whilst Scorpion scuttles away, completely unharmed, after contributing his role, just as Otto had ingeniously intended. When the hero remained unfazed however, Otto proceeds to the next stage of his genius ploy, by wearing the hero down further through more combat engagement with escaped inmates, with both Yuri and Spider-Man never suspecting him pulling all their strings. After another wild-goose chase to effectively draw him out by Electro, Spider-Man even tries negotiating with the supervillain into revealing his employer's name, demonstrating his evident obliviousness and complete and utter unawareness to Otto's brilliant tactics. After finally apprehending Electro (as Otto fully foresaw), Otto then allows Vulture to enter the fray, and briefly immobilise Spider-Man, catching him off guard similarly to the aforementioned incident and provide Electro sufficient to escape and spearhead another chase, even further depleting Spider-Man's energy in due time for his imminent confrontation with the master schemer. The next moment, Spider-Man finds himself facing the combined might of five of the Sinister Six's members, eventually culminating in his painful and crushing beating by the supervillains, setting stage for Dr Octopus to climatically reveal himself, completely shocking the dumbfounded Spider-Man and even inducing him to plead with his former mentor. Despite allying himself with supervillains, none of them were enlightened to the fact that they were all discreetly manipulated by Otto to execute his machinations, a further testament to his unparalleled ability to virtiually outstrategise and break down his opponents through sheer ingenuity and tactical brilliance. **'Master Scientist: '''Otto Octavius, is an evident genius scientist, surpassing even the wunderkind prodigy Peter Parker, with his magnificent knowledge in the most foremost and abstract of the sciences, such as neurotechnology, biomechanics, computer science and prosthetics virtually unparalleled and unrivalled, with Otto easily standing out as one of the most intelligent men on Earth and being one of the leading experts in those fields especially. Weaknesses *'Degenerative Neurological Disorder': Otto suffers from an undisclosed neurological disorder, which he suspects is the result of overexposure to toxic chemicals during his youth. The disorder solely affects his muscles: Peter estimates he will lose control of his motor functions within a year. *'Limbic Degradation': To utilize his mechanical prosthesis, Otto implants an intracranial neural network at the back of his neck to connect the prosthesis directly to his nervous system. While functionally operational, imperfections in the implant's design causes limbic deterioration, damaging Otto's sanity while exacerbating his impulses, especially his anger and paranoïa. *'Attachment Issues: To Otto the mechanical appendages are more than just the culmination of his life's work; they are his last chance of treating himself too. Even before the influence of the neural interface, Otto was greatly attached to the progress and results of his work as he sought to help others with limb loss to gain some measure of control back in their lives, not only as a "doctor" but also as a patient too. After using the mechanical appendages, he experiences the pure joy of movement better than the human body and becomes extremely depressed when not connected to them; after a while he even stops referring to them simply as prosthesis' but lovingly denotes them as his "arms". The prospect of losing his "arms" or implications that they are somehow defective affects Otto greatly as in his view they are saving his life and are the product of his entire life's work. Equipment *'''Mechanical Appendages: With Peter's aid, Otto creates four mechanical arms, which he attaches to his lower back via a harness. At the end of each arm are two sets of claws: a larger set of four claws used for general purposes, and a smaller set used for more precision-intensive actions. These arms, which are connected to his nervous system via an intracranial neural network, are capable of neural transmission speeds faster than 1 nanosecond, faster than signals can travel inside the brain. As a result, these arms function as if they were part of Otto himself. These arms possess superhuman strength, rapid movement, omnidirectional motion, and allow Otto to scale almost any surface. Relationships Peter Parker Otto hired Peter Parker as an intern, both out of recognition of the boy's talent and due to the recommendation of Peter's Aunt May. During the two years Peter worked for Octavius Industries, Otto came to see Peter as a son and close friend. He admires his innate ability and altruism, but is often irritated with his chronic lateness. Together, they are working on advanced prosthetic limbs for his government financiers, who are left concerned after a demonstration failure. Deducing Peter's identity as Spider-Man when he stumbles upon Peter repairing his suit, Otto pretends to misinterpret it as Peter being Spider-Man's assistant, promising to keep it a secret and even helping him by providing additional designs. When Mayor Osborn moves to shut down Octavius Industries, Peter remains with Otto, helping him perfect the neural network. During this time, Otto confides with Peter his history with Norman, and his impeding loss of motor control. Otto keeps his impending plans against Norman a secret, including the weaponization of their artificial limb technology. Drunk on success upon the completion of the neural network, Otto is initially dismissive, then resentful of Peter's concerns of the network's obvious flaws. However, as the limbic degradation had not yet taken hold, Otto pretends to listen to Peter's warning and agree to fix the bugs. While his emotional reasoning continues to deteriorate, Otto still values his friendship with Peter, and orders the Sinister Six not to kill Spider-Man during the breakout. In a recording found in his lab, Otto leaves a message for Peter, admitting his pain in potentially losing Peter's friendship but affirming that he believes his actions are just. The gradual change in Otto's personality due to the influence of the neural interface skews all of his previous world views, essentially embracing the exact opposite of what he originally stood for. This can be seen throughout the laboratory at Octavius Industries including the mission statement of his company changed from for the focus of helping other people to his personal gains, the designs for the arms on the whiteboard focusing on weaponization as opposed to the previous basic design and function. This change also extends to Peter where on a recording he sees Peter as "always watching" and stealing his ideas, the exact opposite of before where he praised Peter for his improvements and ingenuity. When the inevitable battle between the two comes, Otto is deaf to Peter's pleas to stop his madness, and casts aside their friendship for the sake of his crusade, even impaling Peter with his mechanical appendages. After he is defeated by Peter, Otto initially curses Peter for turning on him before begging one last time for Peter's help, claiming that his actions were the result of the neural interface affecting his mind. Otto makes his final mistake by telling Peter that with his help he can fix the neural interface and the arms while keeping his secret identity, implying blackmail. Realizing that the Otto Octavius he knew is gone, Peter reluctantly leaves him to the authorities, ending their partnership for good. Norman Osborn Otto and Norman Osborn were close friends in college, and went on to found Oscorp together. However, Norman became increasingly obsessed with genetics, and resorted to unethical business practices. It is implied that Otto left Oscorp due to the incident with Martin Li, which Norman was directly responsible for. Otto came to view Norman with contempt, as Norman not only continued to steal credit for Otto's work and talent, but squirm his way out of any consequences for his behavior. Due to his financial difficulties, Otto was forced to take a grant from the Mayor's Office to fund his research. During the events of the game, Norman uses a malfunction as an excuse to revoke the grant, and has Octavius Industries shut down for safety violations. Otto recognizes it as Norman's thinly veiled attempt to force Otto to return to Oscorp. This incident reignites Otto's hatred for Norman, leading him to see his former partner as a cancer on the world, and triggering his transformation into Doctor Octopus. His hatred towards Norman is go great that he was willing to undertake tasks that previously would have horrified him as he designs plans to damage city infrastructure and cripple essential services which alone would have resulted in the deaths of many people, however he goes further by unleashing the Devil's Breath and sending known super criminals to terrorize the city, which if successful could have lead to the deaths of millions of people all to prove a point. In his eyes the deaths of the people of Manhattan would have been acceptable losses in his plans against Norman. Ironically, Otto's plan does work somewhat, as Norman is eventually forced to resign as Mayor after his role in the Devil's Breath catastrophe – while retaining his title of CEO of Oscorp, Norman is publicly disgraced. Martin Li Otto met Martin Li when the latter was a child. Based on the recording retrieved from Norman Osborn's secret room, Otto was unaware of Li's injection with GR-27 until it was too late. When Li became "Mister Negative", Otto was shocked and saddened at the turn he had taken. However, as his hatred for Osborn increases during the course of the game, Otto sees Li's actions as inspiration. It is revealed over the course of the game that Otto has supplied Li with medication to help him control his powers for years, indicating that the two are on amicable terms at the very least. That would explain why Li seems keen on following his orders to not kill Spider-Man at the Raft breakout, as he actually knows and trusts Otto. Original appearance Doctor Octopus was one of the original members of the Sinister Six. The character's first appearance came in ''Amazing Spider-Man'' #3 (July 1963). Behind the scenes Doctor Octopus is voiced by William Salyers, who also provided motion capture for the character. Doctor Octopus' inclusion in the game was leaked during a live stream of a game by Chris Jai Alex, the motion-capture actor for Rhino, commenting on the size difference while doing motion capture between Rhino and Doctor Octopus; he was quick to stop talking, however, and speculation about this leak lingered until the game released. References Category:Characters in Marvel's Spider-Man Category:Bosses in Marvel's Spider-Man